On this last day of the domestic English football season, Jim Gannon was able to claim a first of his own. In all four previous visits to Wembley in his decade as a Stockport player he had suffered defeat. Now, on this first appearance as their manager, the Irishman could claim his first win.

The Rochdale manager, Keith Hill, has urged his side to create history in the League Two play-off final at Wembley a week tomorrow. The Lancashire side have not won a promotion since 1969 and have been in thebottom tier of English football since 1974, the longest unbroken run in the Football League's basement division.

While the rest of the country tune into Wembley for this afternoon's 127th FA Cup final, four sides meet either side of the showpiece match, vying for the opportunity to follow Portsmouth and Cardiff to the famous stadium and earn a place in League One next season.

Swansea City's supporters might like to think of themselves as the Arsenal of League One, a passing team who entertain with a pleasing and effective style of attacking football. Like Arsène Wenger's team, however, they are starting to feel the effects of a long season. Last night's result at the Liberty Stadium left the long-time leaders with only two points from their last three home matches, although they were probably grateful for the draw after Jason Scotland's two second-half goals denied Bristol Rovers an unlikely victory.

Ebbsfleet United will make Wembley history in May when they face Torquay United in the FA Trophy final with a team picked via the internet by the thousands of members of the MyFootballClub group that now owns the club.

The surprise was there was no surprise. Or maybe the surprise was that, after such a remarkable weekend, the bigger club wasn't humbled. West Bromwich had looked the most vulnerable of the more renowned quarter-finalists but, instead, are on course to complete a remarkable double-double having been the last club, in 1931, to win promotion and the FA Cup.

Some managers will be busy trying to convince all around them that exiting the FA Cup this past weekend will at least let them concentrate on improving their respective league positions. Southampton's caretaker managers, Jason Dodd and John Gorman, will surely be among them.

The last time I spoke to Miles Kington was three days before he died. It was 6pm, the Comment pages were due off in an hour, and he still hadn’t filed. For Miles, this was unheard of. His stuff was usually in by early afternoon. Day in, day out, for more than 20 years, he was 100 per cent reliable, and 100 per cent brilliant. An editor’s dream, in other words.

They are the missing women of Bradford – the more than 200 teenage girls per year who disappear from their schools and fail to return from trips overseas. Where they go and whether they come back is not known, but is is feared that many are forced to marry abroad – and hundreds more like them across the country are vanishing every year.

So long as there are games like this, and clubs like Hereford United, rumours of the FA Cup's demise will remain gloriously exaggerated. True, Championship side Cardiff's victory over League Two rivals could hardly be called a cup upset, but the narrowness of its margin, together with the spirit in which yesterday's match was conducted, was a credit to the world's greatest club competition.

Villa Park, or whatever name they may chose to call it in the end, is a joyful place to be nowadays. This side, under the wily Martin O'Neill, appear rejuvenated and the players, a disillusioned and dispirited bunch that staggered to 16th in the final Premiership standings last season, are now playing purposeful football.